The Deer Remembers the White Horse

Born to Run made Micah True, aka, Caballo Blanco (the White Horse) and Scott Jurek, aka, El Venado (the Deer), famous to runners and non-runners alike. Days after True's body was found in New Mexico, Jurek reflects on the passing of his friend.

New York Times bestseller Born to Run made Micah True, also known as Caballo Blanco (the White Horse), and Scott Jurek, nicknamed El Venado (the Deer) famous to runners and non-runners alike. The two met in person over six years ago after Caballo convinced ultrarunning champion Jurek to travel to the canyons of Mexico to race the local Tarahumara Indians with which he'd been living and running. A great story, and a friendship based on mutual respect, ensued.

Caballo Blanco's body was found in the Gila Wilderness on Saturday, March 31, after he'd been missing for days. Many of his friends, including Jurek, had traveled to New Mexico to help the massive search efforts, running miles on the rugged trails calling out his name.

Days later, El Venado reflects on the passing of his friend.

When did you first meet?We met over the internet, actually. I used to get these...unique emails. The sport is full of colorful, wonderful people, but I'd get these emails from him about coming down to the Copper Canyon. They'd say, "Come run with the real runners." He had a very unique way of captivating my attention. At times I thought, "Who is this wild man who lives in the bottom of the Copper Canyons?" I had been interested in the Tarahumara...He had a real deep respect for indigenous people who ran for love, for sport, for survival. He was a definite storyteller which helped with those emails.

What did you think of him when you first met in person?I thought everything that I had heard or read and also what I gathered through his emails fit him perfectly. He was just this very simple, very passionate, yet very stubborn guy. He had this very common element. He might have seemed eccentric to some people, but what I liked about him was that he didn't have a certain agenda. He wanted each of us to experience the Copper Canyon, what the Tarahumara had to teach us. That was his whole reason to get us down there. Sure, it was to have some top runners come run against the Tarahumara, but he was just there to facilitate an adventure, a journey. He always had an adventurous spirit. From the moment we hopped on the top of the bus for the four-hour drive with all the luggage, to when he took us to what he called his "Grandmas" houses where we were invited into a family's home. The mother and grandmother started cooking for us, real simple food. All of those things right away really resonated with me. Later, we never realized how big all of that would get. It was just like a downhome race we could be taking part in, in any part of the country.

How had your relationship with him evolved over the years?The book is based off the trip down there in 2006. I went down in 2007 as well. Caballo always would speak to me as "El Venado," (the Deer) and he'd say, "The people are always asking me when you're coming back. They want you back." He was never pushy, but he often sent the little emails: "The people of the Copper Canyon want the Venado back." But he had respect for what I was doing. He knew I was involved with other races. We spoke a similar language.

I saw him at OR (the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show) last August, and we got together for a beer at Mountain Sun here in Boulder last summer. It was one of those things where we just got each other. We didn't have to explain anything. He was doing his thing, and I was always supportive. He got me and I got him. We'd email occasionally, but when we saw each other, we kind of picked up where things left off. It wasn't much—it was just easy.

That's the way he lived his life. He was very nomadic. He could split from one environment to the next. He spent time in Arizona, here in Boulder, down in the canyon. It's a good sign of all trail runners, to be adaptable to the environment. He was much like the native people he revered—he was mysterious in that way.

Did you see him change much when Born to Run came out?Like a lot of us, he wasn't quite sure how the book would change things. Would it change trail running, would it change ultrarunning? He started to embrace it. He started to realize how big of an impact his personality was having on people. It was confusing for him. He didn't expect things to get so big, like a lot of us—we were just doing our thing. But he was inspired when he realized he had an impact. He went around Europe last summer doing speaking engagements. He started to embrace that even though he was a man of solitude in a lot of ways.

Can you describe what it was like running with him?I remember running one of those first days in the Copper Canyon when we first arrived, and even on the hike to get there. He was like a little kid—playful, talking a mile a minute. He'd talk about this Tarahumara, this runner...And you could just sense the joy and excitement. He'd talk about he ways of the Apache, Geronimo, legends of Tarahumara, male and female, who could run for hundreds of miles. It was infectious, more than just fun. He'd talk about the animals, and he was someone who had a lot of wisdom about running. I was in the Copper Canyon to learn those things. He wasn't the fastest runner, but he lived it and he breathed it—not in an obsessive way. It's just how he was. Even though Born to Run turned him into this larger than life character, he was just one of us. He loved to be in the mountains, run, be with people. He inspired people, just by doing it.

Can you talk about the last time you saw him?I got together with him here in Boulder. What we shared in that conversation over a couple of beers was that it was kind of funny to talk about where things have progressed, what Born to Run had done to things. But in many ways, things were still the same. He was still going down to live in the Copper Canyon. Yes, the race got bigger but in a lot of ways, things were the same. He didn't really act any different. He was a big inspiration to a lot of people. Somebody came up to us that night, and said, "Sorry to bother you, Caballo and Scott, but I just want you know that I'm just a really huge fan. I read the book and wanted to say how much of an inspiration you are." Caballo smiled. He deserves that. Both of us smiled at each other and acknowledged that that's kind of weird now. Five or six years ago, that would have never happened.

He always tried to tell me that he always thought of me as someone special. The problem is, were both pretty humble, but Maria, his girlfriend, told me this morning that Caballo liked how I kind of did my thing. He'd always say that, "The people want you back in the canyon...They keep asking more than anybody else, they keep asking about you." He always wanted me to know that. Maybe we have more of an impact on non-runners than we realized.

What do you think the impact of his passing has?I don't think anything will change, and I don't mean that in a bad way. It's a sign that he's such a special person whether he's here or not. He'll still have that lasting impact. He had that nature about him that he was here doing all these great things. But because of the impact he had, it multiplied. Much like the race. There were 40 or 50 of us that first year. It has grown to 400+ this year. At the same time, it's not this crazy race. The reverberations it's had, the rippling effects across the world through Born to Run that follow it, it's pretty amazing. That's a sign of someone doing something they really love and sharing it.

Do you take any solace in knowing he died running on the trail, doing what he loved?I think it's special. My grandfather always says that he doesn't want to die in a nursing home...When Chris (McDougall, author of Born to Run) and I were searching down there we thought how Caballo would say that he hopes he can just walk off and do what Geronimo would have done if they would have just let him be. It's eerie, the fact that he did disappear for so many days. But it was very fitting for him. Hopefully when the autopsy comes back, it'll show that he went peacefully, without much struggle. He was running. We might not pass away doing something we love, so if one gets to choose how they move on to that next stage—that was a very special place for him. He'd visit the Gila Wilderness a couple times a year, learning more about the native tribes, the Apache and Mogollon Indians, so it was fitting in that way. He loved the Copper Canyon, Boulder, Phoenix, but the Gila was kind of his second running home, really.

But he's very young. It's extremely sad. He still had a lot of people to influence, a lot of things he could have done. It's a reminder to keep doing what we love. He gave everything he had. He was a man of simple needs, with a way of simple living. And so in a lot of ways, he did a lot just in the last six years that I've known him to have impacted millions of people by just putting on this small little race in the Copper Canyon. But Chris and I also thought, while we were looking for him, "He'd be cringing right now, wondering, 'Why are all these people out here? Why are people doing this?'" He didn't want that...And at the same time, we'd all want to wring his neck for going missing. That was his kind of personality.

He always wanted to get people to understand what was most important in life and running. It was always about community and camaraderie and celebration. Running should be fun and running should be free. And that was his spirit always.